


Kiss for a Kiss

by rebelmeg, remreader



Series: Rebelmeg's TSB Mark IV Fills [4]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Adorable Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Banter, Chef Happy, F/M, Flirting, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Happy is a Halloween Hero, Married Life, Parent Pepper Potts, Parent Tony Stark, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Uncle Happy Hogan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:55:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27298252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebelmeg/pseuds/rebelmeg, https://archiveofourown.org/users/remreader/pseuds/remreader
Summary: After a full day of Halloween festivities at SI, Pepper heads home for some much more personal tricks and treats.
Relationships: Pepper Potts & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe) & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Series: Rebelmeg's TSB Mark IV Fills [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1894204
Comments: 28
Kudos: 61
Collections: Ladies of Marvel Bingo 2020, Marvel Spookytober Prompts 2020, Pepperony Bingo 2020, The Shatterdome's Trick-or-Treat Challenge, Tony Stark Bingo Mark IV





	Kiss for a Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> WE ARE DOING SO MANY EVENTS WITH THIS FIC! Stay tuned for Tony Stark Bingo, Pepperony Bingo, Ladies of Marvel Bingo, Marvel Spooktober, and Shatterdome Trick or Treat info...
> 
> Title: Kiss for a Kiss  
> Collaborators: newnewyorker93 & rebelmeg  
>  **TSB Card Numbers: 4042 (newnewyorker93), 4034 (rebelmeg)**  
>  **TSB Squares Filled:** 4042, A4 - mission gone wrong  
> 4034, R3 - marriage  
>  **Pepperony Bingo Squares Filled:** newnewyorker93, I2 - “This isn’t the worst thing you’ve caught me doing.”  
> rebelmeg, G2 - Cabin in the woods  
>  **LoMB Squares Filled:** newnewyorker93, N5 - “Is that candy for me?”  
> rebelmeg, E1 - “The store ran out of candy.”  
> Ship: Pepperony  
> Rating: Gen  
> Major Tags: Iron Family, Halloween fic, fluff  
> Summary: After a full day of Halloween festivities at SI, Pepper heads home for some much more personal tricks and treats.  
> Word Count: 2204
> 
>  **Marvel Spooktober Prompts:**  
>  Day 2 - Haunted House  
> DAY 7 - “We ran out of candy, and a mini horde is coming this way!”  
> Day 14 - Covering the house with Halloween decorations  
> Day 25 - Ominous Knocking 
> 
> **Shatterdome Trick or Treat Prompt:** F5 - Halloween costumes

Pepper was running mostly on autopilot and muscle memory as she pulled into the driveway of the Stark lakehouse and parked, lost in her usual mental review of the day's events; her way of unwinding a bit on the drive home. She’d spent the whole day running around, a fairly typical occurrence for her, but instead of the standard stress-filled (and occasionally boring, it had to be said) CEO work, today there had been all kinds of Halloween fun to be had. Halloween was always one of the busiest days of the year at Stark Industries, even though barely any actual work got done.

Tony was usually their mascot, presiding over the Halloween festivities in his Iron Man suit and doing his thing with the throngs of children that showed up; a mix of local kids, community groups, and of course the various juvenile relations of SI employees. This year, however, with Morgan still a baby and unable to handle that level of excitement and noise for too long, he had only made a brief appearance at lunchtime, beaming in (as he put it) over hologram to introduce the very special guest star superhero. Which was Rhodey, of course, with Nebula in tow to get her first taste of some proper Halloween pomp and circumstance. All in all, the day had been a smashing (and exhausting) success, and Nebula had made out like a bandit with a full bag of her first trick-or-treating Halloween candy.

And though the workday was over, things were just getting started. It wasn't until Pepper was fully out of the car and walking around to retrieve her bags from the passenger side that she caught a full glimpse of the house and had to suppress an audible gasp. She scarcely recognized the place!

They lived in a cabin in the woods, true (and Tony had made all the requisite pop culture-tinged jokes about _that_ ), but now it looked like, well, a _cabin in the woods_. Tony had managed to, in the relatively brief time she'd been at work, completely transform their cozy home into a spooky haunted house, a perfect balance of scary and fun. And set up one of those 12-foot Home Depot skeletons, because Tony Stark did not work by half measures. At some point, she was going to have to find out exactly what bribery he'd used on Morgan to make her cooperative enough to allow this. So far, Pepper could manage a twenty-minute shower by herself while Morgan played in her crib, and even that was pushing it.

This mission was pushed from her mind almost immediately as she stepped through the door, carefully dodging a few strategically draped cobwebs, and saw Tony and Morgan waiting for her just inside. Pepper couldn't help her smile (not that she ever stopped smiling at those two) as she watched Tony, looking pretty proud of himself, scoop their daughter up into his arms, taking extra care not to dislodge or squish any part of her shiny Hershey’s Kiss costume. This costume had been a closely guarded secret until now; Tony had wanted to surprise Pepper for Morgan's first Halloween and she'd agreed, given his clear enthusiasm for the project. It was definitely worth the wait.

Morgan seemed to be enjoying the costume as well (Pepper suspected she might be less pleased when she eventually realized she couldn't reach her feet like this; that, however, was a problem for later). She gurgled happily at the sight of her mama, but her little hands were already busy trying to put the Hershey's label dangling from her hat into her mouth.

Pepper laughed. "Is that candy for me?"

Tony clicked his tongue and held her out of the way as Pepper approached, assuming a faux-chastening air. "Uh-uh. You didn't say the magic words." 

Pepper couldn’t help but smirk and play along. "Trick-or-treat?" 

He made a show of thinking about it. "I'll trade you — a kiss for a Kiss?"

Enjoying this game, Pepper raised an eyebrow, considering it. "Not sure whether that counts as a trick or a treat..." 

Tony just beamed at her and pursed his lips. "Only one way to find out!"

Not quite able to stop smiling, Pepper looped one arm around his neck and gave him a quick peck. 

He knew what she was doing, teasing him like that, and looked at her with an expression of perfect innocence. "Did that provide any clarity?" 

"Hmm, too soon to tell." 

He was struggling not to grin now, and Pepper loved few things more than the way his big brown Bambi eyes twinkled. 

"I can give you some more data points," he suggested, shifting a little closer, and it was no hardship at all to press a much more satisfying kiss to his lips. She hadn’t even pulled back yet, her mouth still on his when he murmured, "If that would help." 

The data collection period had to be cut tragically short as Morgan, still perched on Tony's hip, began making disgruntled noises at the lack of attention currently being paid to her while Pepper giggled at her husband.

"Sorry, sweetheart." Tony gave their little Mo a kiss on her cheek, then presented her to Pepper with a flourish. "Your candy." 

Pepper was busy giving her Kiss all the kisses when the approaching noise and chatter characteristic of — and Tony confirmed this with a quick peek out the kitchen window — several young children gathering on the porch soon drew their attention away from each other (and Morgan). It was swiftly followed by some _very_ enthusiastic knocking, and a ring of the doorbell for good measure.

"Wow, they really start early around here," Tony commented, surprised — it was still fully light outside. "Thought we'd have a few hours!" He turned back to Pepper. "You got the candy, right?"

Pepper frowned. "About that... There's been so much going on lately, all the prep for the SI party — you know how _that_ is — on top of all the usual chaos... I kept meaning to pick some up on the way home and then not getting around to it—"

"Until today," Tony finished optimistically, "when you bought so many high-quality full-sized candy bars befitting our soon-to-be established role as _the_ best trick-or-treating destination in New York that you need me to help you unload them from the car?"

"—until today, when I _tried_ to do exactly that..."

"Tried?" Tony squeaked, suddenly looking panicked.

Pepper sighed. "The store ran out of candy."

"How does a store run out of candy on Halloween?!"

"I don't know, but they did. Unless you wanted me to get a bag of candy corn or those gross 'circus peanuts' or, I don't know, breath mints. They were clean out of everything else."

Tony made a gagging sound, and Pepper had to agree. Candy corn and circus peanuts would honestly be worse than no candy at all.

"Besides, don't we have candy here?" Pepper asked, grasping at their last hope against the costumed masses still knocking at the door. "Enough for a few trick-or-treaters, at least?"

Her dear, darling, beloved husband pointedly didn’t look at her. "Nope."

Pepper fixed Tony with that piercing 'I don't have time for your nonsense right now, Mr. Stark' gaze he knew oh-so-well. "I know about your 'secret' stash of Reese's," she informed him, "and seeing as this is an _emergency_..."

Now it was Tony's turn to look guilty. "Well first of all, those are _mini_ Reese's, which would be totally insufficient for trick-or-treating purposes, even if they are the best version from a chocolate-to-peanut butter ratio standpoint…” He dodged a quick glance at her, then muttered under his breath, “Also I ate them all."

Pepper stared at him in disbelief.

"In my defense, setting up this entire state-of-the-art haunted house experience and convincing Little Miss M to be the adorable chocolate kiss you see before you was a lot of work! I needed _sustenance_ , Pepper!"

"So you ate a _whole bag_ of Reese's?!" She really should have expected this. Tony Stark, billionaire, able to get relatively easy access to the finest and most delectable food in the world, didn’t just have a sweet tooth, but also a weakness for cheap chocolate. He could knock back an astonishing amount of Hershey’s chocolate, and usually kept a stock of the tasty morsels squirreled around all over the house and workshop. Pepper couldn’t really be upset with him though, not with how cute he was, all flustered and defensive over getting caught with his hand in the candy bowl. “Oh, Tony,” she sighed.

“I know, I’m sorry! I’ll be properly penitent about my addiction to Reese’s later, but right now it's Halloween, the only candy we have is one very non-edible Hershey Kiss, and I can already see another mini horde coming this way! This is a disaster, we are _so_ getting egged.”

“Okay, now you’re just being dramatic. We are not going to get _egged_.” Pepper insisted, trying to get a handle on the situation. She knew perfectly well that they had nothing in the fridge to offer trick-or-treaters, but she looked anyway out of desperation. “Do people even do that anymore? Besides, haven’t you been working on that force-field defense system for the house? I’m sure you could set it to ‘egg’, if you’re that worried.”

Tony shook his head, quite emphatically. “Doesn’t matter. It’s the principle of the thing. If we get the egg it means we _earned_ the egg — we can’t be the house that earns the egg!”

The doorbell rang again, which was becoming a seriously ominous sound. And not just because Tony had rigged it to make haunted house noises instead of the usual generic jingle. Pepper was considering maybe, just _maybe_ sacrificing up her good Swiss chocolate that she had hidden in the freezer, when they heard a familiar voice.

“Hey, kiddos. Is the haunted house not open yet? That’s okay, I know the password.”

Morgan, who had clearly recognized her Uncle Happy’s voice, gave a delighted shriek and reached for the door. He knocked on it in the rhythm of 'shave and a haircut' and hollered, “Boo!”

“Is that the password?” Tony asked Pepper as he went to open the door. “Isn’t that just a smidge cliché?”

“You ate all the Halloween candy, you don’t get to mock Happy’s password.”

"Well I suppose it _is_ an upgrade from 'password', at least. He used that one for the entirety of the early 2000's. Baby steps."

Tony opened the door with a flourish, and Pepper had never been so glad to see the man on the other side. Especially considering the fact that he was handing out individually-wrapped Halloween cookies to the little group of kids that had clustered on the porch.

“I kinda figured you maybe hadn’t had time to stock up on treats, so I made you some,” Happy admitted, looking like he might be blushing a little bit. “Had to go home and grab them, or I’d have been here sooner. I didn’t think having them at SI all day was a good idea. Barb in Accounting always knows when I’ve brought treats.”

Pepper took a closer look at the cookies as Happy came in. There were a myriad of different kinds: pumpkin chocolate chip and decoratively iced sugar cookies, chocolate cookies shaped like bats, and what looked like huge oreos with bright orange filling. She had assumed they were store-bought, but there were no tags or barcodes on the simple plastic bags. “You made these?”

“Of course he did!” Tony beamed at him. “Happy is a man of many talents, including cooking, baking, and saving the day.”

By this point Morgan had escalated from babbling and reaching for her Uncle Happy, to shrieking and nearly lunging out of Pepper’s arms, so she was glad to do a swap. Tony took the cookies, Happy took the baby, and Pepper answered the door when another knock sounded.

“Happy, you’re my favorite person in the world, and I sure hope you brought a lot of cookies. Tony doesn’t want us to be the egg house.”

Happy nodded seriously. “Nobody wants to be the egg house. And don’t worry. I’ve got about three hundred more of them out in the car.”

Tony, who had been giving the cookies a distinctly lascivious look as he passed some out to the trick-or-treaters, now looked positively gleeful. Pepper pointed at him and fixed him with a sharp glance. “No.”

He immediately pouted, “But—”

“An entire. Bag. Of. Reese’s. Tony, no.”

Despite this admonition, she was pretty sure that by the time the trick-or-treaters finally petered out well after eleven o’clock, that Tony had hidden at least a dozen cookies around the house, and probably more in the workshop when he disappeared for a while “to get more cobwebs for the door.”

But that was okay. Pepper had stashed away a few herself, and as soon as Morgan was coaxed back to sleep (again, thank goodness they were done with the doorbell for the night) and Happy was heading home, she was going to curl up with Tony to watch _Young Frankenstein_ and enjoy her own well-deserved Halloween treat.

(She was referring to Tony, of course.)


End file.
